


Shining

by burntotears



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-03
Updated: 2018-09-03
Packaged: 2019-07-06 05:13:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,130
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15879267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burntotears/pseuds/burntotears
Summary: Remus gives a mysterious gift to Lily.





	Shining

**Author's Note:**

> [originally written 2005-07-06]

Lily walked quietly up behind the brown shaggy head that just peeked up over the back of the large armchair in the corner. The boy was facing the window, looking trance-like at some unseen miracle outside.

"Remus? Are you ok?" She moved around to the side of the chair and held in a gasp, though her features gave away her worry. 

He smiled. "I'm fine, Lily."

"But - well you look terrible, Remus." Lily covered her mouth with her hand. "That's not what I meant. I meant you look sick. Sick, yes. Pale..."

He nodded in reply, never letting his eyes leave that spot. "I know."

She turned to the window finally, gazing out into the slow afternoon, currently covered in fat, wet raindrops. "What are you looking at?"

"Look here." He gestured his hand and she moved closer to the arm of the chair to examine what he was looking it. 

It wasn't the window at all, but a spot on the wall next to the window. Lily's face wore a scowl as she searched the stone wall, not seeing anything of particular interest. "I don't see-"

"Just watch. Watch closely." His posture and his voice was even and relaxed as it had been for their entire conversation and even before she showed up.

Lily, on the other hand, felt tense and stupid because she couldn't see anything on the wall. In fact, she felt like maybe Remus was going a little nutty and had taken to watching stone walls and finding things in them that weren't really there.

But he hadn't. Soon enough she saw something move and leaned closer to get a better look. There was a stream of water, very small and very slow, trickling down the wall. There was a blemish somewhere that was letting in the rain from outside and it fell from a point she couldn't find above her head to the stone floor under their feet, puddling slowly. If it kept it up the floor could get wet very fast but Remus didn't seem to be concerned about this, which puzzled Lily most of all. Why was this so interesting anyway?

And then Remus answered, as if reading her mind, and she realized just how much she had been leaning over him to see as his voice rang out right next to her ear and nearly made her jump. "It's a mistake. Some would call it a problem--something that needed to be fixed. You look at things on the surface and that's all you'll see; something unwanted."

He stood up, smiling at her with a sad but powerful pull, and gently placed his hand on her shoulder. "But when people look, really look, they can find so much beauty in places they never thought possible. Close your eyes, Lily."

She had a million questions: Why was he acting like this? What was he talking about? Why did he look so sick? Where were James, Peter and Sirius? Why should she close her eyes? What was he going to do? But with all the questions running around in her mind, she couldn't find a single reason to ask any of them. So instead of protest, she closed her eyes willingly and waited.

Remus placed a hand on either of her upper arms, more gentle than Lily think she had ever felt someone touch her before. He walked slowly forward, pushing her along and she stumbled a little at first but got her footing quickly enough as to not look like a complete buffoon. 

He seemed to lead her only about a few feet forward and then stopped, turning her body slightly to the side. He allowed only one small sweep of his palm on her arm, down to her wrist before removing himself completely from her and folding his arms behind his back. He nodded. "Ok, you can open your eyes now."

Lily felt like a git, like she was being made to look like one but she knew deep down Remus didn't have a bone in his body that would treat her in any such way. So she opened her eyes and a gasp escaped her mouth when she saw what Remus had wanted to show her. Thousands of stars danced before her eyes, sparkling brightly against the light in one long vertical line down the stone wall. It was the small stream of water that was leaking next to the window, hit perfectly by a ray of light from the window behind them. It was the most magnificent and simple thing she had ever set her eyes on. "Remus, it's-"

"Beauty." He nodded in understanding. She really couldn't believe him sometimes. He seemed to always know the most perfect things to do and say and yet he was so closed up and so afraid to let himself open to anyone besides the other three Marauders. She had the greatest urge then to do something she never did, which was take a chance.

Lily Evans turned to look at Remus Lupin in the middle of the Gryffindor Commonroom that Thursday afternoon and kissed him. Fully and completely on the mouth like they'd done it a thousand times before, her hand resting on his upper arm. He didn't seem to move. He didn't even seem to react and after so many seconds she felt as if she'd just made the biggest mistake of her life. 

But finally, it came. A very slow, very small, very tentative reaction to her lips on his own. He was kissing her back. Not nearly with as much force or knowledge of what it was to kiss, but it was a reply that was so sincere that Lily felt as if her heart was bursting into a million pieces, sparkling in the sun just like the water.

She pulled back and looked at him, right into his sincere cloudy eyes and he looked back at her, squarely, unlike he ever had before. "Remus Lupin, you _are_ beautiful." She spoke without thought or hesitation which she knew meant that what she was saying was completely sincere. He didn't seem to respond to her words but she knew that he had heard them, really heard them and she was content with that. 

She left him standing in the commonroom and headed up to the girls dormitories, but not before giving him a single kiss on the cheek for him to remember her with.

And he would remember her, from that day until the day when she started to date his best friend James, and until the day that she and he had their very first beautiful son, and long after the fateful day when she would die, protecting that beautiful boy, along with one of his very best of friends.


End file.
